A large carbon sink induced by the implementation of the largest afforestation program on Earth

作者：Jiaojun Zhu, Yirong Sun, Xiao Zheng, Kai Yang, G. Geoff Wang, Chaozong Xia, Tao Sun, Jinxin Zhang · 发表于：Ecological Processes · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1186/s13717-023-00455-8 · 被引用次数：33 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management

Abstract Background Three-North Afforestation Program (TNAP) in China is the largest ecological restoration project on Earth (ongoing from 1978 to 2050), harboring a huge area of newly planted forests, which provides a wealth of goods and ecosystem services that benefit society at levels ranging from region to East Asia. This project-induced carbon (C) sink has been expected to be large, but its size and location remain uncertain. Results In this study, we investigated the changes in the C stocks of biomass, soil C and the C accumulation benefited from the ecological effects in the project areas from 1978 to 2017 within the Three-North regions (4.069 × 10 6 km 2 ), and evaluated its project-induced C sequestration. Using a combination of remote sensing images, field observations and national forest inventory data, we estimated a total ecosystem sink of 47.06 Tg C per year (1 Tg = 10 12 g) increased by the TNAP implementation. Importantly, we first found that the C sink via the ecological effects of this project could contribute to a high proportion up to 15.94%, indicating a critical role of ecological effects in shaping the distribution of C stocks in the protective forests. This finding suggests that it is necessary to explicitly consider carbon sequestration benefited from the ecological effects when estimating C sink and parameterizing C models of the restoration projects in China and globally. Conclusions Our results update the estimates of C pools in the world's largest...